page_title: Dennison Wheelock
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Dennison Wheelock / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Dennison and James Wheelock, Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Other information No.
context_page_description: Dennison Wheelock was an internationally renowned Oneida band conductor and cornet soloist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; he was also a composer. Wheelock was compared at the time to John Philip Sousa, and nominated to be bandmaster of the United States Marine Band. At the age of 40 he became an American Indian rights activist and attorney, and within several years was arguing cases for Indian nations at the United States Court of Claims and US Supreme Court.
  Wheelock was born in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. He went to Pennsylvania to be educated at the Carlisle Indian School, returning later for study at Dickinson Preparatory School. Wheelock was appointed as the first Oneida bandmaster of the internationally acclaimed Carlisle Indian School Band, which performed at world fairs, expositions, and presidential inaugurals. While at the school, he composed the Sousa-inspired "Carlisle Indian School March." In 1900 he debuted his three-part symphony, Aboriginal Suite, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
context_section_description: Dennison Wheelock was born June 14, 1871, in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, second child of James A. Wheelock and Sophia Doxtator. He had an older brother Charles and a total of eight other brothers and sisters, and half-siblings. Dennison grew up in the 1870s and early 1880s in a poor Oneida farm community, which was faced with increasing economic pressures to harvest its timber and a federal push for the allotment of tribal lands to individual households. The Nation struggled with high alcohol consumption and tribal infighting. Dennison took up the cornet after hearing his older brother, Charles, playing it. He was impressed by a visiting Tuscarora musician, who taught the youth music reading and simple composition for several months. In 1879, Seneca and Tuscarora musicians won medals of excellence at state fairs. Dennison also heard the popular band music of John Philip Sousa at Wisconsin fairs. Locally, the Oneida Union Band and the Oneida National Band were prominent in community events and throughout the Midwest.
caption: Brothers Dennison and James Wheelock served as bandmasters, Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, PA, c.1885
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